The Tragedy of Losing Your Wikipedia Page (wired.com) 60
An anonymous reader quotes an excerpt from a Wired article that explores the often-contentious process of nominating pages for deletion when their subjects fail to meet the encyclopedia's notability standards: What do you need to know -- need to know -- about Xavier Trudeau? The eldest son of former Canadian prime minister Justin, the teenage Trudeau has recently begun performing R&B under the mononym Xav. But, with all due respect to Xav, do those facts make him a person of note? Should you expect to be able to read about him on Wikipedia? What about Evanescence guitarist Tim McCord, or 2012 Yachtmaster of the Year Rainer Holtorff? All three have had a biography on Wikipedia; all three of those biographies were considered for deletion this year on the grounds that the subjects were not notable enough to warrant a biography at all. Every day, dozens, sometimes hundreds, of Wikipedia biographies -- of child actors turned LA realtors, retired ambassadors, soccer players who have played less than 10 minutes of professional soccer -- are purged from the world's free encyclopedia.
It's not as though Wikipedia, which hosts over 7 million articles in the English language, doesn't have the space. But Wikipedia has only so many volunteers to monitor its contents. To this day, Wikipedia editors are discovering hoaxes that have gone undetected for decades. The time it takes to verify the release dates of Xav's three singles is better spent -- the logic goes -- by asking whether the American Civil War officer Nathaniel Lyon really drank mustard during battle, as was claimed in his Wikipedia biography for 17 years. Wikipedia removed the mustard claim, not because it was proven wrong, but because there was no reliable evidence for it. "We're not really looking for what's true," Britta Gustafson, who has been editing Wikipedia since 2001, told me. "We're looking for what's verifiable." Wikipedia editors do not themselves decide that a person is not notable, only that there is a lack of reliable evidence to support the claim...
It's not as though Wikipedia, which hosts over 7 million articles in the English language, doesn't have the space. But Wikipedia has only so many volunteers to monitor its contents. To this day, Wikipedia editors are discovering hoaxes that have gone undetected for decades. The time it takes to verify the release dates of Xav's three singles is better spent -- the logic goes -- by asking whether the American Civil War officer Nathaniel Lyon really drank mustard during battle, as was claimed in his Wikipedia biography for 17 years. Wikipedia removed the mustard claim, not because it was proven wrong, but because there was no reliable evidence for it. "We're not really looking for what's true," Britta Gustafson, who has been editing Wikipedia since 2001, told me. "We're looking for what's verifiable." Wikipedia editors do not themselves decide that a person is not notable, only that there is a lack of reliable evidence to support the claim...
Why does such a level of notability really matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
ELI5: Why does Wikipedia care so much about notability?
I get the privacy angle. Nobody wants a random Wikipedia page about their neighbor. But once someone is recognized as a public figure in any capacity, what’s the harm? More available information seems like a net positive in most cases.
Re:Why does such a level of notability really matt (Score:4, Insightful)
And what's the threshold for notability? It's entirely possible that someone is well known in a certain circle but that circle isn't in the public zeitgeist, but if you join that circle you would know of that person.
I mean, I can guess if you have a public persona then at a minimum that should be worthy of something - if your neighbor is like everyone else who keeps to themselves then yeah, they don't get a wikipedia page. But if you're a public performer and have done something in public you are notable for, then having that would be worthy of inclusion. If nothing more than just your public facing persona.
Like Xav's page would have his parents listed (both are public notable personas), and details on his music, but I would expect the rest of it to not be documented because that would likely be private information. But it would be a useful detail if someone were to ask "Is Xav related to Justin?".(It's a question worth asking, given Justin's rather public dates with Katy Perry)
Re: (Score:2)
rather public dates with Katy Perry
Who?
Re:Why does such a level of notability really matt (Score:5, Funny)
The astronaut.
Re: (Score:2)
bro (Score:1)
"And what's the threshold for notability?" -- You ask, as if this essential question had not been answered literally decades ago on the wikipedia.
The "problem" is that there are a lot of people who meet the objective criteria for notability. A top-league professional athlete will pretty much by definition meet the criteria because all professional sports are heavily covered in the media. (Likewise with some other intensively-covered sectors like politics.) So twenty years ago Jimmy Wales decided that editor
Re: (Score:2)
This is basically why people don't donate to Wikipedia. They have been burned either by their pages getting deleted, getting into fights with editors or having people vandalize their pages and participating in edit wars.
Re: (Score:2)
But it would be a useful detail if someone were to ask "Is Xav related to Justin?".(It's a question worth asking, given Justin's rather public dates with Katy Perry)
The thing is are you after information on a detailed life of Xav? It sounds like you're asking for information based on a related objectively notable person. I have a better question. Is Ella-Grace Trudeau related? I mean she doesn't have a wikipedia page because she's completely unnotable, but if you go to the actual notable party through whom you are trying to draw a link you'll find it right there:
"They have three children: a son, Xavier, a daughter, Ella-Grace, and a second son, Hadrien."
Re: (Score:2)
The music group IRONTOM doesn't have a page for some reason. But its members are mentioned on several other pages.
Re: (Score:3)
Maintaining it with a level of accuracy where enough sources exist to do so effectively. There is always Wikia/Fandom for unverified articles written by whomever.
Re: (Score:2)
I used to contribute regularly to Wikipedia and spent many hours editing articles each week.
The deletionists ended that.
Too much of my work was being deleted for stupid, arbitrary reasons.
If someone is willing to spend hours writing an article about Trudaeu's son, then it's reasonable to assume others are interested in reading it. Even if no one reads it, it does no harm by existing.
The deletions need to stop.
Re: (Score:2)
I used to contribute regularly to Wikipedia
Same here, and it sorta why I posted the original post. I used to write mostly stuff to do with technology. I will never forget when I spent hours back in 2008 adding information to the EMC Clariion [wikipedia.org] page only to have the entire thing reversed because I didn't ask permission in the talk page first. 2008 was the last time I ever edited Wikipedia.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:[D]oes [the] level of notability really matter? (Score:2)
My cue to add to the discussion, though I never spent that much time adding to Wikipedia and I never tracked what happened to any of my efforts. Also I suspect there are some folks who would accuse you of having one or more axes to grind...
But trying to answer the original question, I think it's because of the financial model. If money wasn't a factor, then why not let everyone have a Wikipedia page? It could even be a way to implement my mythical MEPR (Multidimensional Earned Public Reputation) to solve al
Re: (Score:3)
The deletionists often have vanity pages larger than anything they contribute to Wikipedia.
Re:Why does such a level of notability really matt (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, which is a book where you can look up articles summarizing what has been published about various subjects, with pointers to those publications.
Although people who haven't read the instructions tend to misinterpret the term notability, it's used on Wikipedia to refer to the quantity and quality of sources available to write an article.
If not enough has been published in good enough sources about a subject yet, it doesn't get an article yet. Don't read anything else into that.
Wikipedia follows the sources; it doesn't break news, report original research, or tell the story itself.
Re:Why does such a level of notability really matt (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is, that is not true. I have seen multiple cases in which the information in an article is well sourced, in that the facts in the article are attributable to reliable sources, but the subject is considered not notable by many editors because he or she is not considered of sufficient interest. In some cases, the deletion is pretty clearly justified by a specific policy, namely that a person known only because of a single event is generally not considered notable. Even that policy is not a bright line since people known for a single event who have been in the public eye still have articles devoted to them. An example is Lee Harvey Oswald. He is only known for assassinating President Kennedy, but there is a lot of interest in him, so he has his own article, not merely a mention of his role in the article on the Kennedy assassination. Other cases are still more subjective.
One consequence of this is that there is a huge disparity between people in different walks of life. It seems like any band that ever got out of somebody's garage gets or any professional athlete, however minor, gets a detailed article, while people arguably of greater significance in areas that don't attract as much popular interest do not.
It is reasonable that Wikipedia should not want articles about your next door neighbor Joe, who may be a great guy but has not done anything notable, but the current policy is highly subjective and excludes a lot of people whom one might want to look up in an encyclopedia precisely because they turn up in the news or in a specialized area but are not widely known celebrities. The policy in its current form not only allows the deletion of interesting articles about people some people would want to know about, but it encourages unproductive deletion debates.
Re: (Score:2)
Wikipedians make many mistakes in applying the notability criteria in deletion discussions, but the vast majority of those mistakes result in bad keeps, not bad deletes.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe it's the opposite. I used to use Wikipedia much more as it had article on some very niche topics. Now I have to hunt for the information elsewhere. In my view, an encyclopedia should have "anything of interest to at least some people", not "anything of interest to wikipedia editors"...
Re: (Score:2)
It seems like any band that ever got out of somebody's garage gets or any professional athlete, however minor, gets a detailed article, while people arguably of greater significance in areas that don't attract as much popular interest do not.
Porn stars. At least back when I quit WP, one of the things that sent me over the top was that every minor porn star (especially female) apparently deserved their own page, while scientists didn't even if they had numerous published articles and citation and done important work - but their field was nothing famous.
Re: (Score:2)
Not true. Hardline deletionists on Wikipedia go after content they do not agree with or have a hateboner for, and find the flimsiest of excuse to remove the content. Wikipedia has more information on individual pokemon and individual episodes of television shows than it does on real living people that are not politicians of screen actors. Stage actor? Not notable. Comedian? Not notable. Comic writer/artist? Not notable. Book writer? pffh, buy your way onto the NYT best seller list or you're not notable.
Edi
Re: (Score:2)
Although people who haven't read the instructions tend to misinterpret the term notability, it's used on Wikipedia to refer to the quantity and quality of sources available to write an article.
In theory.
If you follow actual notability discussions, they are largely about "this isn't important".
Re: (Score:3)
It's just used an excuse for censorship is the main problem.
Like every single South Park episode has its own page but several public intellectuals who spoke out against lockdowns suddenly became "not notable".
"Trust the Experts" / "You're no longer an expert"
Abuse is inherent in the system as currently defined.
They could use some proxy like view counts, but that would be objective, not subjective.
Yet every once in a while I look up some obscure biological molecule or plant that hardly anybody cares about, m
Re: (Score:2)
Have you considered reading the summary? I mean it's right there, the whole point is to keep the platform somewhat manageable and prevent any idiot from creating a page about any other idiot out there.
Re: Why does such a level of notability really mat (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
"Why does Wikipedia care so much about notability?"
Lack of notability leads to lack of observation. Wikipedia depends on a premise similar to open source software: that given enough eyeballs, all citation errors are shallow. If an article for a notable person is altered, it won't be long before someone spots something odd, goes through to the cited source to see that the change is not supported by the source, and then reverts the change. If that happens on an article with low notability, it provides a means
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Your post has the appearance of being written by someone who hasn't even read the summary (or understood if they did.)
Do you talk like this at parties, or is this strictly an online thing?
Re: Why does such a level of notability really mat (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wikipedia has been actively hostile to what it considers not notable. Like the threshold for a long time has been "media coverage", but even that is contentious because there is a lot of fake "media" and parody media out there that exists just to boost search engine presence.
The level of hostility has actually actively chased people who contributed greatly to the platform away from it. Case in point one editor out there is an absolute zelot on the notability of comics, with their level of notability basical
Re: (Score:2)
Without a notability filter, anybody would create a Wikipedia article about their own person, activity, project, falsely increasing its credibility ("see, I have a Wikipedia page about me") and also diluting the value of Wikipedia (signal to noise ratio)
"We're not really looking for what's true," (Score:1)
And that pretty much sums up Wikipedia. A popularity contest for factoids, actual facts are irrelevant by policy.
Re:"We're not really looking for what's true," (Score:4, Insightful)
If that comment is based on what Britta Gustafson said, you are deliberately misinterpreting it.
They are removing "factoids" for which there is no proof, along with articles they think nobody wants to read (but presumably they can check for that). I'm not upset, I share my first+last names with so many people, I could claim to be one of them (and if called on it, "the editors cancelled me").
Re: (Score:2)
So it's not longer 101+1=3
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Encyclopedias exist to summarize what’s already been documented and proven, not to take some guy's word on the internet for what's "actually true." Saying Wikipedia cares about verification over truth just means they require receipts. Without that rule, any hoax would stay up forever just because you can't prove a negative.
Re: (Score:2)
I propose ... (Score:4, Funny)
I can sympathize (Score:2)
Start by deleting page history then (Score:2)
They claim part of the reason is that they "don't have the space". If that's the case, start by deleting the page edit history rather than the entire article.
To pick their example of "Xav". That page has 36 edits. By deleting the history, they could cut the size to 1/36 of its current space. Even though I've never heard of him, the child of a former prime minister who has a music career (however successful) seems like an appropriate candidate for a Wikipedia page.
I guess the truthyness wasn't strong enough. (Score:3)
Getting emotionally worked up about stuff happening on Wikipedia and with your contributions is a thing you should avoid. Wikipedia has parts and aspects that brink on the random, recognizably driven by ego, ignorance and some mild state of perpetual edit-war. I still occasionally contribute a litte but make a point of not caring to much about what happens with that info.
If there is a fact that I need to be out there in the public, I post it on my own website. Problem solved.
Other than that people shouldn't forget that the internet - Wikipedia or anything else - is a virtual Mad Max Fury Road where you best keep your head low and use a nice bouquet of throw-away spoof accounts to get around and do things. Especially in spaces run by entities or megacorps that are totally beyond your control. As I guess every IT expert here will agree.
*you* don't have a wikipedia page (Score:3)
Wikipedia has a page about you. You don't own the page, they do.
I can see both sides (Score:2)
True stuff is still true and valuable, even if it does not appear in any publications
If the rule was relaxed, the flood of crap would be gigantic and overwhelming
"We're looking for what's verifiable." (Score:2)
"Psychology is the *scientific* study of the mind and behavior."
Most psychology experiments are not replicated, so psychology can no longer be called scientific.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5976261/
Re: (Score:3)
Claiming that "Most psychology experiments are not replicated" is both true and irrelevant. Most psychology experiments are done to satisfy arbitrary rules. When I took a psych class, I had to sign up for, I think, one experiment per week. None of them were either replicated or significant.
There *are* psychology experiments that are replicated. Some survive replication, some don't. The ones that aren't replicated aren't important...and there are lots of experiments in other sciences that aren't replica
Re: (Score:1)
AI can solve this (Score:2)
I feel like Wikipedia confuses the problem of availability with that of discoverability. Simple text pages don't take up much space, what's the harm in having every person have their own short bio page? Instead of trying to enforce vague standards of notability, Wikipedia should make their search better. Next token prediction could help with this, as it would make it possible to search in the context of a given field, using your recent search history. For example, searching for "fission" could take you to a
Re: (Score:2)
Who in their right mind would want one? (Score:2)
"We're looking for what's verifiable." (Score:3)
That works for science. But for biographies? What makes a biography "verifiable"? The longer someone has been dead the harder it is to verify any claims. Ultimately you're relying on historians or whomever wrote the history books and more often than not they've been wildly biased in favor of the viewpoint of the historian. It's not supposed to be that way, but it is.
I can point to several "sources" for George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and not lying about it. Doesn't make it "true".
Jesus? Mohammed?
Likewise, it's going to be difficult to find legit sources for some historical claims. (and that doesn't even get into Wikipedia's arbitrary judgements on what makes a source reliable)
At the end of the day Wikipedia is just following human tradition - "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
Re: (Score:2)
Closer to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tradition. All they need are the words "Don't Panic" on the front cover.
keep your hands off my (Score:2)
You leave 2012 Yachtmaster of the Year Rainer Holtorff alone!
YMA Yachmaster of the Year awards go to one candidate out of around 3000 people taking the exam to become a professional skipper.
That said, I don't see a list of professional skippers on Wikipedia, nor a list of who's won the award every year. The list is maintained by the YMA and is on their site I imagine. Does it also need to be on Wikipedia? It's not meant to be a copy of all the information on the internet.
Re: (Score:2)
If it doesn't, it has no real value.
Worlds smallest violin (Score:1)
doesn't have a Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] either.
"We're not really looking for what's true," (Score:3)
"We're looking for what's verifiable."
I mean, that's basically the same thing? It's an "if A = B, and B = C, then A = C" kinds of things.
Re: (Score:3)
Almost nothing on Wikipedia is true, but all of it is "verifiable" in that there's at least one published source making the claim. Even if 99.9% of all other sources say the opposite.
(The Haka is not, for example, a war chant. Which is attested to, but because it's claimed to be online, it is "verifiable".)
Wikipedia has a vast number of errors. (Score:2)
The number of errors is huge, the number of "official editors" who know anything about the subject is extremely small, and this has always been the case. This is why nobody reputable cites Wikipedia. Wikipedia is where you go to find out what is potentially interesting, but you ALWAYS obtain the facts from elsewhere, if you've any sense.
fuck WP (Score:3)
The deletionists are one of the reasons I stopped contributing to Wikipedia. It's not like you need to fit into a 20-volume print edition, idiots. You can give every damn porn star who's been in one clip you liked their own page, why not everyone else? For all I care, every human on the planet could have their own page, and every house with a story, and every dog and cat.
Just imagine if the amount of time and energy spent on the deletion discussions alone would go into improving WP instead.
Or, you know, you could use the time to do something about the people hogging their favorite page and considering it their property and reverting everyone else's edits just because it wasn't made by them. Or one of the other dozen issues the site has. But no, whether or not Xav deserves a page, that's what needs discussion. Fuck off.
Wikipedia vs Facebook. (Score:2)
A printed copy of an encyclopedia, while outdated and may contain errors that can't be corrected on that print edition - are immutable. Enough people get enough power and entire historic entries could be cancelled from Wikipedia.
On the other hand no one is going to delete your Facebook page, or visit it.